Like other systems of philosophy of education, naturalism has also made important contribution to education. It made education paidocentric, psychological, free, self-dependent, related to nature and society, based upon developmental psychology, democratic, multisided and natural to the stages of development. These points may now be discussed in detail.
1. Paidocentric education. In the naturalistic conception of education, the child is in the forefront while all other things such as the educator, the books, the curriculum, the school, etc., are all in the background. Sir John Adams called this the conception of paidocentric education. Naturalism stresses the fact that education should be guided by the nature of the child, that the natural inclination of the child is always good. Rousseau said, "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature but everything degenerates in the hands of man". It is, therefore, argued that the child is naturally invested with all goodness, and all that is necessary is to protect him from a defective environment. He must be provided with the kind of environment which will encourage him to develop his innate goodness, his natural sense of the beautiful. He must be enabled to avoid the ugly, to manifest the natural truth inside him so that he can combat the falsity which is thrust upon him by the defective environment. In this process, the educator can perform only the function of the guide. Naturalists are not inclined to transform the child's nature through education or to apply to him the standards of the adult. Education according to them, is not the preparation for life but life itself. Children should live like children, because infancy has its own significance, and it is not merely a stepping stone to adulthood. The child is not to be prepared and made ready for his future, but instead to be allowed to enjoy the present. Munro opines that Rousseau was the first to state the principle, that, "Education finds its purpose, its process and its means wholly within the child life and the child experience". In this manner, it can be summarized that education is the process of living a natural life and moving towards evolution, because the child has within himself the germs of evolution.
2. Emphasis upon psychology. The influence of naturalism was the cause of the psychological tendency gaining so much prominence in the field of education. By stressing the fact of the child's nature, it emphasised the importance of natural development. And, in order to determine what is natural and what is abnormal in child development, the naturalists turned to the psychologists. Thus it came to be understood that education must study the child and observe him. Many psychological researches have established that the child is not a young adult, that he has a distinct psychology which differs from adult psychology. It has been established that the child's mental activities of thinking, memory, imagination, recall, learning, etc., all differ from similar activities in the adult. Hence, naturalism stressed the value of psychology for education. Rousseau is often created with introducing the psychological tendency in education for he was the first to point out that education should follow the child's nature, which must first be understood. Although Thomas Fuller had stressed even before Rousseau the importance of studying the educand more than books, it was the latter whose theorizing in this sphere took practical shape. Rousseau's ideas were put into practice by Pestalozzi, Herbert, Froebel and other educationists. The introduction of psychology into the sphere of education led to considerable research in child psychology, and the entire process finally culminated in the emergence of a distinct branch of psychology called educational psychology.
William McDougall has made valuable contribution to the literature on and knowledge of child psychology by his analysis of the child's instincts and his definition of the process of character formation, determination and sentiment formation in the child. Thorndike and other psychologists contributed great wealth of knowledge in the sphere of manual skill and other aspects of child learning. By comparing and examining the various stages in the evolution of the child, it was found that child psychology differed considerably in infancy, childhood and adolescence. As a consequence, great stress was placed on adopting different techniques of teaching at each one of these stages. Apart from this, education was further influenced by the discovery that children differed from each other to a very great extent in respect of their physical and mental capabilities, their nature and emotions, etc. It was considered desirable to make education flexible so that it could accommodate all such variations and still contribute to the healthy development of the child. But probably the greatest impact on education was that of the psychoanalysts. Freud put forward many novel theses about child psychology. Other psychoanalysts were responsible for many interesting and illuminating books on child psychology, and these were avidly read by educators the world over. In the main, the influence of psychoanalysis can be seen in the knowledge it provides of the harmful effects of repression and the fresh attitudes to sex, authority, the child's attitude to authority. Besides, this branch of psychology also warned educators against the harmful effects of threats, physical punishment and asserting oneself. Ross is of the opinion that the greatest benefit derived from psychoanalysis is that it has helped to explain the causes of juvenile delinquency and also suggested ways and means of curing it.
3. Emphasis upon free choice. Naturalists contend that a predetermined pattern of education must never be foisted upon the child even when the pattern is entirely scientific. Education must give the child an opportunity of making a free choice in everything that he wants to study or play or even the manner in which he wants to behave. No external restraints should be placed on his free choice. Some naturalists even object to the very institution of school education, because they fear that the school is an obstacle in their normal and independent development. They also believe that the atmosphere in the home is freer than the school environment but they are contradicted by others more conscious of the constant interruptions made by parents in the child's activities. Apart from this naturalists, in general, are opposed to all educands in one class being taught in the same manner, or by the same method of education. They even object to the introduction of any kind of time-table. One example of a completely unrestrained environment is to be found in Summerhill School established by A.S. Neil. It was taken for granted at this institution that the child was not expected to be fit for school, but that the school had to prepare itself for the child. Liberty was the first principle in the child's education, so much so that the children could play through the entire day if they were so inclined. They were given no religious education because a child is not naturally religiously inclined. No adult values were forced upon the children who were also taught none of the principles of culture. Naturalists also believe that the child should not be made cultured unless he realises the need for culture. It was, therefore, thought better to leave the child in his more primitive condition. The liberty granted to the children even extended to their being allowed to roam naked if they so wished. It was found that no moral difficulty was raised due to the sex instinct, and it was decided that a healthy attitude to sex could only be generated through coeducation. Neil was of the opinion that undesirable behaviour is due to moral and unnatural repression, and that no undesirable incidents take place due to co-education if the environment is completely free and liberal.
4. Place of the teacher. Naturalism grants to the teacher the place of the friend and the guide, not of the administrator, for he is not to interfere in the child's activities, nor to make any attempt at influencing him. He is there merely to observe them, not to give them any information or to fill their minds with facts or to form their characters. It is for the child to decide what he wants to learn. He will learn from experience what he should learn and when, what he should do and what he should avoid. His interests and instincts should be given an opportunity to manifest themselves freely. All this does not imply that the teacher has no role at all in education, for he has a definite role inasmuch as he is the one who will provide the educative material, create the opportunities for learning, create the ideal environment and thus contribute to the child's development. For example, in the Montessori method of education, the child is given many kinds of equipment to play with, while the teacher looks on and observes. Naturalism, thus, favours the concept of self-education. Norman Mancken has gone one step further and suggested that children can even educate each other. Nothing should be done with a view to turning the child's mind in any particular direction. He is not to be taught to read or write, to make use of the various parts of his body, or be taught moral lessons, but merely to be left to himself so that he can develop independently. This is what Rousseau implied by his concept of the educator's negative effort in the process of education. Negative effort did not imply that the teacher was merely to pass his time, but to observe the child, avoid any interference in his activities, to prevent or protect him from defects, to protect him from a defective environment. The educator must be perfectly aware of all that he has not to do, but at the same time this negative attitude is to be supplemented by the positive one of love and sympathy. He can love the child only when he himself has been a child, that is, he has not completely forgotten his childhood. He should have the inclination to laugh and plays like the child, to forget that he is an adult, to mix with the children and become one of them himself. Only then can he give anything to them.At times, one finds children developing some bad tendencies and it becomes necessary to guidethem. But even this should be done in the form of an informal conversation with the child. In such a dialogue the educator understands the difficulties of the educand, shows his love and sympathy and encourages the educand to solve them himself. He makes the educand aware of the difficulties he is likely to face. Neil called this re-education. He saw in his own school that many of the children often sought opportunities for such informal dialogues. Whenever the children showed any disinclination for such dialogues, they were immediately abandoned.
5. Direct experience of things. Naturalists believe Rousseau's dictum, "Give your scholar no verbal lesson; he should be taught by experience alone." Hence, the naturalist lays stress on teaching through direct experience. The child will learn more by coming into contact through the objects surrounding him than through books. He should be allowed to examine these objects. Similarly the teaching of science should not take the form of verbal lectures, but actual performance of experiments in the laboratory. Geometry should be taught not by the problems written in books but by the actual measurement of the areas of the school and the height and other dimensions of the school buildings and other objects. If geography is to be taught, the educand should be taken to the various parts of the country, and not taught only through maps and charts produced on the blackboard. Thus naturalists insist that the educand must learn from the things that exist in the school, not through the lectures of the educator.
6. Direct experience of social life. What is true of the natural environment of the child, is also equally true of the social environment in which he lives. He should learn the various duties, obligations and responsibilities of social life not through lectures of the educator but through the natural society of the school, of which the educand is a member. Here, left to himself, he will learn to do those things which should be done and leave alone those which should be avoided. In Neil's Summerhill School the children themselves decided upon the form of behaviour which others found objectionable or which hindered their adjustment, and thus learnt to avoid it. This formed the basis of the child's social education. The concept of co-education is also favoured by the naturalists because then the society within the school resembles more closely the society outside school. Besides, it has been contended that unnatural attitudes to sex are the inevitable result of segregated education of boys and girls. This is a very controversial subject and many educationists fail to agree with the naturalists, although in many cases the results of experiments in coeducation favoured the naturalists' thesis. It can undoubtedly be said, however, that the child's experience of the social life within the school, forms the basis of his later social and moral life.
7. Self-government. Another characteristic feature of the naturalist conception of education is the insistence on self- government. Neil's Summerhill School experimented in this direction also by allowing the educands to form their own government. They created a cabinet of five educands whose function it was to reflect on various difficulties, to give decisions in cases of indiscipline and even to inflict punishment for such acts. These five cabinet members met every Saturday night, and one of them was elected to the chair. All problems were then discussed.The cabinet even had the authority to expel an educand from the school, if it so decided, although in fact this right was never exercised. Neil states that this arrangement led to the development of highly democratic qualities in his educands, and it was felt that this weekly meeting had a much greater influence and impact than an entire week of traditional teaching. And, in fact, no one can doubt that such an arrangement of self-government is very beneficial for training educands in democratic living. The condition of self-government does impose certain restrictions on the educand's activities, but because it is imposed through his own rules and regulations, it takes the form of self-government and self-discipline. All kinds of self-control can be learnt through self-government, and it has none of the drawbacks of the method of external control. There is undoubtedly no better way of teaching public morality. And it is only self-government which teaches cultured behaviour and co- operation.
1. Paidocentric education. In the naturalistic conception of education, the child is in the forefront while all other things such as the educator, the books, the curriculum, the school, etc., are all in the background. Sir John Adams called this the conception of paidocentric education. Naturalism stresses the fact that education should be guided by the nature of the child, that the natural inclination of the child is always good. Rousseau said, "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature but everything degenerates in the hands of man". It is, therefore, argued that the child is naturally invested with all goodness, and all that is necessary is to protect him from a defective environment. He must be provided with the kind of environment which will encourage him to develop his innate goodness, his natural sense of the beautiful. He must be enabled to avoid the ugly, to manifest the natural truth inside him so that he can combat the falsity which is thrust upon him by the defective environment. In this process, the educator can perform only the function of the guide. Naturalists are not inclined to transform the child's nature through education or to apply to him the standards of the adult. Education according to them, is not the preparation for life but life itself. Children should live like children, because infancy has its own significance, and it is not merely a stepping stone to adulthood. The child is not to be prepared and made ready for his future, but instead to be allowed to enjoy the present. Munro opines that Rousseau was the first to state the principle, that, "Education finds its purpose, its process and its means wholly within the child life and the child experience". In this manner, it can be summarized that education is the process of living a natural life and moving towards evolution, because the child has within himself the germs of evolution.
2. Emphasis upon psychology. The influence of naturalism was the cause of the psychological tendency gaining so much prominence in the field of education. By stressing the fact of the child's nature, it emphasised the importance of natural development. And, in order to determine what is natural and what is abnormal in child development, the naturalists turned to the psychologists. Thus it came to be understood that education must study the child and observe him. Many psychological researches have established that the child is not a young adult, that he has a distinct psychology which differs from adult psychology. It has been established that the child's mental activities of thinking, memory, imagination, recall, learning, etc., all differ from similar activities in the adult. Hence, naturalism stressed the value of psychology for education. Rousseau is often created with introducing the psychological tendency in education for he was the first to point out that education should follow the child's nature, which must first be understood. Although Thomas Fuller had stressed even before Rousseau the importance of studying the educand more than books, it was the latter whose theorizing in this sphere took practical shape. Rousseau's ideas were put into practice by Pestalozzi, Herbert, Froebel and other educationists. The introduction of psychology into the sphere of education led to considerable research in child psychology, and the entire process finally culminated in the emergence of a distinct branch of psychology called educational psychology.
William McDougall has made valuable contribution to the literature on and knowledge of child psychology by his analysis of the child's instincts and his definition of the process of character formation, determination and sentiment formation in the child. Thorndike and other psychologists contributed great wealth of knowledge in the sphere of manual skill and other aspects of child learning. By comparing and examining the various stages in the evolution of the child, it was found that child psychology differed considerably in infancy, childhood and adolescence. As a consequence, great stress was placed on adopting different techniques of teaching at each one of these stages. Apart from this, education was further influenced by the discovery that children differed from each other to a very great extent in respect of their physical and mental capabilities, their nature and emotions, etc. It was considered desirable to make education flexible so that it could accommodate all such variations and still contribute to the healthy development of the child. But probably the greatest impact on education was that of the psychoanalysts. Freud put forward many novel theses about child psychology. Other psychoanalysts were responsible for many interesting and illuminating books on child psychology, and these were avidly read by educators the world over. In the main, the influence of psychoanalysis can be seen in the knowledge it provides of the harmful effects of repression and the fresh attitudes to sex, authority, the child's attitude to authority. Besides, this branch of psychology also warned educators against the harmful effects of threats, physical punishment and asserting oneself. Ross is of the opinion that the greatest benefit derived from psychoanalysis is that it has helped to explain the causes of juvenile delinquency and also suggested ways and means of curing it.
3. Emphasis upon free choice. Naturalists contend that a predetermined pattern of education must never be foisted upon the child even when the pattern is entirely scientific. Education must give the child an opportunity of making a free choice in everything that he wants to study or play or even the manner in which he wants to behave. No external restraints should be placed on his free choice. Some naturalists even object to the very institution of school education, because they fear that the school is an obstacle in their normal and independent development. They also believe that the atmosphere in the home is freer than the school environment but they are contradicted by others more conscious of the constant interruptions made by parents in the child's activities. Apart from this naturalists, in general, are opposed to all educands in one class being taught in the same manner, or by the same method of education. They even object to the introduction of any kind of time-table. One example of a completely unrestrained environment is to be found in Summerhill School established by A.S. Neil. It was taken for granted at this institution that the child was not expected to be fit for school, but that the school had to prepare itself for the child. Liberty was the first principle in the child's education, so much so that the children could play through the entire day if they were so inclined. They were given no religious education because a child is not naturally religiously inclined. No adult values were forced upon the children who were also taught none of the principles of culture. Naturalists also believe that the child should not be made cultured unless he realises the need for culture. It was, therefore, thought better to leave the child in his more primitive condition. The liberty granted to the children even extended to their being allowed to roam naked if they so wished. It was found that no moral difficulty was raised due to the sex instinct, and it was decided that a healthy attitude to sex could only be generated through coeducation. Neil was of the opinion that undesirable behaviour is due to moral and unnatural repression, and that no undesirable incidents take place due to co-education if the environment is completely free and liberal.
4. Place of the teacher. Naturalism grants to the teacher the place of the friend and the guide, not of the administrator, for he is not to interfere in the child's activities, nor to make any attempt at influencing him. He is there merely to observe them, not to give them any information or to fill their minds with facts or to form their characters. It is for the child to decide what he wants to learn. He will learn from experience what he should learn and when, what he should do and what he should avoid. His interests and instincts should be given an opportunity to manifest themselves freely. All this does not imply that the teacher has no role at all in education, for he has a definite role inasmuch as he is the one who will provide the educative material, create the opportunities for learning, create the ideal environment and thus contribute to the child's development. For example, in the Montessori method of education, the child is given many kinds of equipment to play with, while the teacher looks on and observes. Naturalism, thus, favours the concept of self-education. Norman Mancken has gone one step further and suggested that children can even educate each other. Nothing should be done with a view to turning the child's mind in any particular direction. He is not to be taught to read or write, to make use of the various parts of his body, or be taught moral lessons, but merely to be left to himself so that he can develop independently. This is what Rousseau implied by his concept of the educator's negative effort in the process of education. Negative effort did not imply that the teacher was merely to pass his time, but to observe the child, avoid any interference in his activities, to prevent or protect him from defects, to protect him from a defective environment. The educator must be perfectly aware of all that he has not to do, but at the same time this negative attitude is to be supplemented by the positive one of love and sympathy. He can love the child only when he himself has been a child, that is, he has not completely forgotten his childhood. He should have the inclination to laugh and plays like the child, to forget that he is an adult, to mix with the children and become one of them himself. Only then can he give anything to them.At times, one finds children developing some bad tendencies and it becomes necessary to guidethem. But even this should be done in the form of an informal conversation with the child. In such a dialogue the educator understands the difficulties of the educand, shows his love and sympathy and encourages the educand to solve them himself. He makes the educand aware of the difficulties he is likely to face. Neil called this re-education. He saw in his own school that many of the children often sought opportunities for such informal dialogues. Whenever the children showed any disinclination for such dialogues, they were immediately abandoned.
5. Direct experience of things. Naturalists believe Rousseau's dictum, "Give your scholar no verbal lesson; he should be taught by experience alone." Hence, the naturalist lays stress on teaching through direct experience. The child will learn more by coming into contact through the objects surrounding him than through books. He should be allowed to examine these objects. Similarly the teaching of science should not take the form of verbal lectures, but actual performance of experiments in the laboratory. Geometry should be taught not by the problems written in books but by the actual measurement of the areas of the school and the height and other dimensions of the school buildings and other objects. If geography is to be taught, the educand should be taken to the various parts of the country, and not taught only through maps and charts produced on the blackboard. Thus naturalists insist that the educand must learn from the things that exist in the school, not through the lectures of the educator.
6. Direct experience of social life. What is true of the natural environment of the child, is also equally true of the social environment in which he lives. He should learn the various duties, obligations and responsibilities of social life not through lectures of the educator but through the natural society of the school, of which the educand is a member. Here, left to himself, he will learn to do those things which should be done and leave alone those which should be avoided. In Neil's Summerhill School the children themselves decided upon the form of behaviour which others found objectionable or which hindered their adjustment, and thus learnt to avoid it. This formed the basis of the child's social education. The concept of co-education is also favoured by the naturalists because then the society within the school resembles more closely the society outside school. Besides, it has been contended that unnatural attitudes to sex are the inevitable result of segregated education of boys and girls. This is a very controversial subject and many educationists fail to agree with the naturalists, although in many cases the results of experiments in coeducation favoured the naturalists' thesis. It can undoubtedly be said, however, that the child's experience of the social life within the school, forms the basis of his later social and moral life.
7. Self-government. Another characteristic feature of the naturalist conception of education is the insistence on self- government. Neil's Summerhill School experimented in this direction also by allowing the educands to form their own government. They created a cabinet of five educands whose function it was to reflect on various difficulties, to give decisions in cases of indiscipline and even to inflict punishment for such acts. These five cabinet members met every Saturday night, and one of them was elected to the chair. All problems were then discussed.The cabinet even had the authority to expel an educand from the school, if it so decided, although in fact this right was never exercised. Neil states that this arrangement led to the development of highly democratic qualities in his educands, and it was felt that this weekly meeting had a much greater influence and impact than an entire week of traditional teaching. And, in fact, no one can doubt that such an arrangement of self-government is very beneficial for training educands in democratic living. The condition of self-government does impose certain restrictions on the educand's activities, but because it is imposed through his own rules and regulations, it takes the form of self-government and self-discipline. All kinds of self-control can be learnt through self-government, and it has none of the drawbacks of the method of external control. There is undoubtedly no better way of teaching public morality. And it is only self-government which teaches cultured behaviour and co- operation.
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